"Dark Prison (Carcere Oscura)"

Joseph Mallord William Turner

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Turner copied this view of an imaginary prison interior from an etching by the Italian printmaker, architect, archaeologist, art theorist, and designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). Like other scenes from Piranesi's celebrated Carceri d'invenzione, this image (Dark Prison with a Courtyard for the Punishment of Criminals) presents a cavernous space criss-crossed by labyrinthine walkways and populated by diminutive figures. Turner made this drawing at the beginning of his career, presumably at the evening "Academy" of Dr. Thomas Monro (1759–1833), a pioneering psychologist who welcomed artists to his home to copy or color works in his collection. (Other versions after the present Piranesi design by members of the Monro circle are known.) Although Turner often worked in close collaboration with his friend Thomas Girtin in preparing copies, the present work appears to have been made by Turner alone.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art